The Path

(A continuation of the previous two entries)

I would like to say that I followed that illuminated path through the darkness to the opening where the light flowed through and out of time, but I know no more than you do about the future, gentle readers.

I would like to write that I followed that path through the opening, which of course was the skylight, and found peace at last in a beautiful land of rainbows and waterfalls where the beings who resided there lived in harmony and were compassionate, understanding, and at peace. I could paint a word picture of my imagined Paradise. All of us can hope and long for fulfillment of the broken dreams and unfinished destinies we experience and work our way toward in this physical realm of sensual delights and awful shadows. But again, the future is unknown.

Instead, I can choose to live in the present moment, which is all I have ever had, and find real streams in quiet woods. Or I can find cool water seeping out of an actual spring high in a mountain oasis in the desert. I have been to just such a place. And I can tell you, it is truly a foretaste of what we are capable of knowing and experiencing now. Finding our way to deeper and deeper understandind of life through art, poetry, writing, and reading what both great and ordinary minds and souls have written — all this comprises The Path.

The Path takes us on a journey to many places. We can let ourselves be consumed by our work or become dependent for our happiness on others. We can become pre-occupied or obsessed with outward distractions, temptations, longings and desires. Or we can focus at last on the purification and redemption of our souls. For if we are spiritual beings whose ultimate destiny is union with God, our creator, how can we ignore this? For we must ask ourselves the fundamental questions: Why are we here on Earth? What are we called to do? How are we to achieve our destiny?

Along the way we share in the lives of others, in whatever ways we are destined to be a part of those lives. And we are inspired by circumstance, empathy, friendship, and love to show compassion and mercy, and to help others in whatever ways we can. By doing so, we can make this world a better place in which to live.

Finally, and most importantly, as the great saint wrote, “There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

I think we find what we are looking for in real time, and at long last, if we live mindfully each day of this journey that is given to us. We know only too well when we thwart our true destiny and stray from our individual illuminated paths, which are really nothing more than the daily walks through life that we are given each morning to renew in gratitude, or else to start all over again when we rise and face the new day. For each day is truly unlike any other that came before, or that will follow.